This simple email trick saves me from annoying marketing spam (and it's free to do)

ZDNET shopping editor Kayla Solino, who has covered major sales events like Black Friday and Prime Day, advocates for a simple, free email management strategy to combat the inevitable deluge of marketing spam. Her solution is to create a dedicated "shopping email"—a secondary, throwaway Gmail account used exclusively for all online commerce. This includes signing up for new-member offers, creating retailer accounts, and even managing entertainment subscriptions. By never giving her primary email to retailers, she prevents promotional emails from ever entering her main inbox, eliminating the need for tedious unsubscribe campaigns.

This organizational system delivers multiple benefits beyond spam reduction. All online order confirmations and receipts are automatically stored in one dedicated account, making returns and purchase lookups significantly easier by searching a smaller, cleaner pool of emails. Furthermore, by segregating commercial communications, her primary inbox becomes a focused space for personal and important newsletters, which she reports reading more frequently. The ultimate advantage, according to Solino, is the psychological freedom to mass-delete the contents of the shopping inbox without a second thought, knowing nothing of value will be lost.